Kammermusik No. 2

Requiring great energy, speed, and precision, the striking choreography in Kammermusik No. 2 echoes the intricacies of its modernist score with jagged lines and stylized gestures.

A ballet requiring great energy, speed, and precision, Kammermusik No. 2 has a complex structure that echoes the music; one of the dancers in the original cast likened it to a computer. The ballet is performed by two couples and an eight-man ensemble. The men, with their jagged lines and stylized gestures, dance to the music of the orchestra. The soloists, dancing to the complex passages for piano, are in counterpoint to the ensemble. The score is one of seven kammermusik pieces — the word “kammermusik” is German for “chamber music” — written by Hindemith between 1923 and 1933, when the composer turned to a neoclassical style evoking the Baroque.